Blue Hippo Tang keeps getting ich.
 

I picked up a small Blue Hippo Tang 3 months ago. Put him in quarantine for 3 weeks treated for ich and then put him in the main 130 gallon tank. 5 days later i see ich. Back in to quarantine for 3 weeks and treatment. In the main tank for a few days and more ich. back into quarantine. it spent 3 cycles in quarantine and is back in there again.

All other fish unaffected. 2 clowns, potters angel and a sleeper blue dot goby.

*the temp fluctuates a bit as i do not have a chiller, and the salinity changes a bit too as the water evaporates. but again, all other fish are unaffected.

Don't know if i should just give up on this guy or what?

ideas? advice?

Could be black ich? Do they seem to start white then go black?


Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

How are you treating for ich in quarantine?

If you rid it of ich in quarantine, then there is still ich in your display... so you're just adding it back into an infected tank and therefore it'll develop ich again.

You have to remove all fish from display, leave it fishless for 8 weeks, and treat all fish for ich in quarantine to be sure that it won't get ich again... even then it's not a guaranteed solution since there's a large margin for error.

i had left the tank fishless for 8 weeks. Quarantined all fish for 3 weeks and treated for ich before introduction to the tank. this is what i dont understand.

if ich is a parasite and i starved it in the tank and killed it in all the fish, where did it come from? Even if the water quality was bad (it is not) the ich organism cant come out of thin air...

At this point i only have 1 10 gallon quarantine hospital tank so i cant take all the fish out for 8 weeks.

How bad is the infection? Some white spots are not always ich

Sounds like more a of a stress issue, I have 6 tangs which most tangs are prone to getting ich my hippo gets it almost every time I add another fish lol and usually goes away and never infects the other fish. The fish you have aren't prone to ich I'd leave it with the community and let it recover on it's own power

How? are you sure it was completely treated? sometimes it can remain in the gills without presenting itself on the body, etc.

Correct fallow period for ich is 76 days, not 8 weeks. You're just re-introducing a fish to a DT that still has ich.

Funny enough, aerosol transmission is a thing, and has been documented at up to 10 feet if tanks are in the same room.

Only two ways to completely eradicate cryptocaryon irritans in a tank; fallow without a fish to host on for 76 days, or chemically with copper or chloroquine phosphate. Both chemical methods will kill all your corals, inverts and with CP, all algae.

To remove it in fish is either via tank-transfer methodology for 12 days to stay ahead of the reproductive cycle, or chemically with copper / chloroquine phosphate. Research papers have identified hypo-salinity resistant strains of ich, so that's really not an option anymore. Any "reef safe" treatments are just that, treatments. They will not completely remove ich.

I find ttm the most effective way to prevent ich from getting into your system.

I ttm all my fish now.

TTM is the best stress level wise, but you still need to watch out for marine velvet. On the plus side, you can also get rid of flukes during TTM with prazipro use, and flukes seem to be on pretty much everything these days.